A1-Suicides to a “Seventeen Year Old Crisis”

My Struggle to Communicate and Connect Artistically

My English assignment was to kill myself believably and poetically while reciting Shakespeare in front of the whole school. This was a scary task for an eighth grader who had only done some small comical roles at Montcrest School. The assignment was to take a scene from Romeo and Juliet and make the costumes and props and perform it for the school. I was given the scene in which Juliet wakes up from the sleep potion and sees Romeo dead and thus kills herself. I was terrified; would it look believable? Or would I just look silly in front of all my peers? In eighth grade I was going through that awkward puberty phase that all kids go through, where I was not quite comfortable with my new self and the opinions of my friends meant the world to me.

My godmother, Janet Land, who is a theatre and film actress gave me some tips on how to die believably. At first when I was rehearsing with Janet I was really self-conscious and unsure of myself, but I soon lost my inhibitions and became really open and connected with her. We spent hours, going over and over the sequence, not only the part where I committed suicide, but the whole scene until I got it just right. I would drag the “Ahhh,” sound as though someone has kicked me in the stomach as I stabbed the collapsing plastic dragger into my stomach, and leaned toward my Romeo as I fall from my knees to the ground. “Thus with a kiss I die,” I breathlessly muttered as I fell falling over his dead cold body. Janet would comment that it was a good run, but she would say that I needed to annunciate the “thus I die” more and so we would do it over and over until I was completely out of energy and she had to go pick up her kids from school.

One of the best parts of the experience came a week after the performance when during recess a confused first grade girl tapped me on the shoulder and asked me about the pain I felt when I stabbed myself and if I put a Band-Aid on my cut. I had connected with her and she believed that I had really hurt myself. She was even amazed with my swift recovery.
After that I was hooked. My experiences on stage and in the art studio have given me confidence and the courage to listen to my gut even if that means walking away from a childhood dream. My struggles in the arts have given me a voice and a way to connect with people.

At the family fair that took place every summer near my cottage, our family summer getaway on Georgian Bay near Toronto, when all my brothers were competing in the swimming races, I was more interested in the art contests. I would create cottage-themed crafts out of old scrapes of garbage or nature like moss, leaves and twigs that I would find, paint and glue together into houses, animals or people. My most prized craft was the year that I made, “The Secret Olympics in Georgian Bay.” It was during the summer that the Olympics were in Atlanta and I made a 3-D map of the bay on the back of an old flattened TV box with fashioned rocks and Popsicle sticks for the hidden secret sports facilities. As I often won the art prizes for my odd recycled creations and my brothers won the swimming prizes and egg toss prizes, it was clear I was the “artsy” one of the family.

As a kid I was driven to a buffet of different artistic classes from ballet, hip-hop, theatre games to art lessons. However my real artistic passion didn’t come until my Shakespearean suicide in grade eight. After that I was absorbed with the power of theatre and going diligently to every acting class I could find-improv at Second City, on-camera class downtown, and Shakespeare School at the Stratford Festival of Canada.

While I was sitting in an on-camera acting class where many of the students had representation, I decided that I too was ready to get an agent. Janet gave me a couple names and so I auditioned for representation. Eventually one of them decided to take me on. Her name was Barbara. She was short and plump with a big warm bubbly personality that had become an agent after her daughter had become a TV actress. Barbara had realized the lack of decency amongst child and teenage agents and decided she could do it better. I used to love going to her office before my auditions because we would act out the audition situation. She would be the casting agent and I would do my audition for her. At the end she would say enthusiastically, “Good audition,” and then we would talk about it, and I would feel less nervous as I chewed on the jellybeans from her candy jar on her desk.

My first big audition came that summer, when I was at my remote summer escape on Georgian Bay. My mom had bought a fax machine and set up our answering machine at our cottage so that I would be ready for when important auditions like this came ringing. The audition was for a big American network TV family drama that was being created. My heart was pounding extra fast for the two days before and I had mentally created a countdown to the minute in my mind till the audition moment. The day of the audition I was nervously sitting in the waiting room, going to the bathroom every ten minutes, when one of the stars from Degrassi, the most popular Canadian TV show sat down next to me. She was auditioning for the same part. I felt like I had made it. I was a real actress. I did not get a call back but it didn’t matter because not only was the show later cancelled, but more importantly I felt like I had made it just by being at the audition.

In grade 11, I was auditioning for TV parts, commercials and sometimes indie films every other week, and also taking camera acting and art classes. My plan was to hopefully get some roles, get into USC or NYU theatre school and also maybe minor in studio art if I had time. I heard about the summer program at the British American Drama Academy in London and thought it would be the perfect step for me to get into the USC theatre school as USC recognized it for credit. Janet coached me through the two Shakespearean monologues, one humorous and one more serious required for the audition. I auditioned and felt a real sense of accomplishment when I heard that I had been accepted into the program for that summer. All my hard work had paid off; I was going to go to BADA, then hopefully USC or NYU theatre program and be a successful actress in NYC or LA.

During the months leading up to the program, however, I was not that excited for theatre school. When people asked me about my summer plans I would mutter quickly that I was going to London to study theatre and then gush nonstop about the time after where I would be at my cottage. Something was clearly amiss within me.

After the first day of the Academy I could not understand why I did not want to be there. Theatre school is supposed to be one of the best experiences for an actor. I should have been enthralled and happy with what I was doing, but the material that I was learning no longer interested me and I felt like I no longer needed to perform. I remember doing breathing and annunciation warm-ups during my first days at BADA, activities that a year ago I had found really engaging, but now it just seemed tedious and chore-like. I realized that I had worked so hard to get into theatre school to come to the conclusion that I did not really want to be an actress. I was unable to understand how something that I was so passionate about no longer interested me and how it would be possible to let go of one of my childhood dreams.

It was a very difficult tear-filled week. In hindsight I refer to it as, “my seventeen year old crisis,” because it felt how I imagine a midlife crisis. You wake up one morning and realize that all the things you thought mattered and were important to you, no longer are and you desperately crave a change in direction. Many nights were spent on the phone with my parents back home tallying up ridiculously expensive phone bills as I dissected my life and my passions.

My parents worried that I would miss theatre once I left it. I did not though. I realized that what I loved about theatre and acting was telling stories. I loved connecting with a group as we created a production, however I no longer loved performing, which is vital for an actress. So I followed my gut, exited stage left to leave behind the theatre and acting world and focus my energy on a different artistic pursuit.

My roots in fine arts were much deeper than theatre; I had been drawing since I could hold my favorite broken red crayon. However in high school when I had an agent my fines arts had been put on the back burner. Maybe something deep inside me knew I would end up with my first artistic love, as it was the art form I had always had the most confidence in. So I got back with my old flame and I focused my visual energies as President of the Senior Art Club and came to USC as fine arts major.
I realized with fine arts I was more apt to connect with a greater audience. In theatre there is an emphasis on the singular performance to communicate with the audience. Whereas with visual arts, the artist’s ability to speak to an audience goes far beyond the point of creation of the art form. I saw how the power of the visual image to speak to audiences could transcend time and history while I was studying art history and working in Italy.

As I stood alone in front of Michelangelo’s David in Florence mesmerized for the better part of my morning, I understood how art created five hundred years ago could still speak volumes. I was captivated by how the messages communicated in the Renaissance masterpieces had been speaking to and still spoke to different audiences for hundreds of years. This understanding was further enriched when I worked at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice for the summer where I was surrounded by masterpieces that had been chatting away to viewers for almost a century.

Every morning before we opened the museum, as we dusted off the sculptures and took the pajamas off the painting (the protective cover that we put on during off hours at the museum to reduce the amount of light the painting receive), I anxiously waited to see how different people would respond to the artwork’s messages. I would hear a plethora of different languages all experiencing the art in various ways depending on their cultural backgrounds
My favorite part of my job was when I could explain an art piece’s message to the visitors by giving tours and art talks. Giving these talks and tours, I was using a lot of the skills I developed through my theatre training of speaking clearly, projecting my voice, and gauging the interest of my audience.

After spending so much time in the galleries, I had a special connection with the artworks- I felt like I knew their individual personalities. When I walked into the Los Angeles County Museum a month after I got back from Italy I realized how attached I had become to the artwork. When I went to the Modern Art section in the museum, and saw their Brancusi’s “Bird in Space”, which is so similar to the one in the Peggy Guggenheim Collection that had been chatting away to me all summer, I was moved to tears. Fighting my impulse to openly sob in the gallery, I realized how much I missed “talking” to all the artwork from the Peggy Guggenheim Collection and the incredible beauty of my whole experience in Italy.

As I think back to the timid grade eight girl terrified to “kill herself” in front of her whole elementary school to the young woman I’ve become who stands confidently explaining the significance of Pablo Picasso’s “On the Beach” to a group of all different international travelers, I realized how important this journey has been for me to overcome the singularity and alienation that all humans inherently feel by connecting through art.

Blog5-Artist Statement

Graphic design (posters, logos, illustrations, editorials, etc) is about finding the best way to communicate the message to the audience. Design can encompass so many fields and theories and the goal is to constantly push the boundaries of what this means. As a designer I will challenge myself to find new ways to connect with the public.

Often the message communicated to the public in our capitalist based society is about the benefits and necessity of a commercial product. I hope to have the flexibility in my profession to choose to design for products that have positive messages, and are not just out for fiscal gain.

Although striving to create aesthetically pleasing compositions is one part of it, its important to aim to be a designer and not a decorator. Designing means narrowing in on an idea, flushing out the possibilities with this idea and with the product and creating a smart design. Whereas decorating means taking the item and using conventional design strategies, such as randomly chosen graphics or stock photos, free fonts, conventional filters etc to make the product visually pleasing. Anyone can decorate. What separates a good designer and the average person with the design software is the designer’s ability to think outside of the box to best communicate to their audience.

When possible it is important to strive to be a sustainable designer, which means looking for ways to leave the least impact on the environment while still meeting the client’s and product’s needs in the design. This is possible by choosing recyclable materials, running your studio in an environmentally friendly way and choosing to work for companies that also practice sustainability. Although it is often more expensive to create sustainable design, it is important to try to convince the clients to take the greener option when deciding where to have their designs printed and manufactured.

As a designer it is vital to know what is popular and always be ahead of the cultural curve. Therefore staying up to date with trends in fashion, art, music and society is crucial for a designer. Knowing the other visual chaoes that encircles the genre that that the designer is designing for is imperative so he or she can find a way to do something different to get attention. With each design assignment, it is necessary to research and draw from many sources to create the most effective design.

With my design I will strive to think unconventionally, be different and always bring my unique personality to my work.

A3-Boccioni- Bringing Motion and Cardboard into a Mummified Art Form

“We declare that the world’s splendor has been enriched by a new beauty, the beauty of speed.” Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, February 20, 1909 Le Figaro.

F.T. Marinetti was the founding member of the Italian Futurist movement that argued for the beauty of a speeding machine, progression, and a move away from the tired thinking of Antiquity. Boccioni (1882-1916) was the first artist to convert F.T. Marinetti’s theories into forms. Boccioni felt that Italian art needed to be revolutionized and brought into the 20th Century. In 1912 he directed his attention from painting to sculpture. That same year he wrote to a friend: "These days I am obsessed by sculpture! I believe I have glimpsed a complete renovation of that mummified art" (http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ ho/11/eust/ho_1990.38.3.htm). Shortly after Boccioni wrote The Manifesto for Futurist Sculpture. The following year in 1913 his show at the Galerie La Boetie in Paris his sculptures manifest his discoveries explained in his Manifesto. The sculptures Boccioni created around the time of the exhibition, specifically Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (1913) and the Dynamism of the Speeding Horse + House (1914-1915), pushed sculpture from sheer classical representation and into modernity through his use of new materials and his representation of the sensation of motion in an environment. In doing so, Boccioni opened up the possibility of other artists making further sculptural advances to this “mummified art.”

Boccioni revolutionized the materials used in sculpture by rejecting the idea that sculpture had to be made from only marble and bronze. Boccioni in his Manifesto on Futurist Sculpture wrote, “That new plastic art will therefore involve translating the atmospheric planes that link and intersect things into plaster, bronze, glass, wood, and any other material one may wish” (as qtd. in Coen 191). He believed that in order to progress, sculptors should mix new varying materials into their creations. Dynamism of a Speeding Horse + House created in 1914-1915 as a gift to F.T. Marinetti manifests the developments Boccioni was making of incorporating new mediums into sculpture. Boccioni used coated iron and copper to represent the horses head and neck, wood to represent his body and cardboard for the house in the background. When you look at the piece, it seems that the sculpture is all made out of one material. Boccioni fuses all the different media by painting in oil and gouache on the various elements to create unity. By using this various medias and found objects in this sculpture Boccioni is rejecting art theory from antiquity that high art must be made out of marble and bronze. Boccioni was one of the first to incorporate found objects into his art by using cardboard and iron pieces in Dynamism of a Speeding Horse + House.

By breaking the mold and using untraditional media in his work, Boccioni allowed for later artists to explore with even more unconventional materials in sculpture. Boccioni was influenced by the collages of Picasso and Braque. Boccioni traveled to Paris around 1912 and was friends with these artists. He took these Cubist ideas about opening up possibilities of new materials in two-dimensional art and converted them into his sculptures. These ideas were not incorporated into sculpture in France until the forties when Picasso created the Bull Head and Duchamps made his Ready Mades many decades after Boccioni’s sculptures. Contemporary artists such as Louise Bourgeois and Jeff Koons and countless others have pushed Boccioni’s idea of using found objects further by incorporating more usual things into their pieces such as wool, dead sharks, pills, etc. Boccioni pushed sculpture into Modernity through his use of different found objects in his work, which allowed later artists to experiment with new media in their three-dimensional work.

Not only did Boccioni use new materials, which inspired other sculptors, his use of classical materials like bronze in new ways was also inspiring. Through Boccioni’s use of shiny bronze and jagged forms in Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, he draws the connection that the motion of a striding human is like the motion of a machine. Like the other Futurists Bocccioni believed in the beauty of the machine’s motion. F.T. Marinetti is famous for saying that, “A roaring motor-car which operates like a machine gun, is more beautiful than the Winged Victory of Samothrace.” (as qtd. in Edwards 25). Boccioni translates Marinetti’s theories on the importance of industry and progression into sculpture by creating a machine like being instead of a smooth organic representational of a human in motion. Posthumously Boccioni is best known for Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (1913). Arguably its the most famous art piece associated with Futurism because of Boccioni’s use of shiny bronze to create a machine-like motion to man’s stride.

Not only is the machinery aesthetic of his sculptures new, Boccioni also was the first artist to shift the focus of the sculpture from the subject itself to the subject’s motion. In doing so, Boccioni was able to show the continuity of motion, the violent nature of action and the motion’s interaction with its environment. Furthermore by doing so he built on the ideas developed in Impressionism and opened the door of possibilities for later sculptors to explore motion in their 3D forms. The sculptural representation of people or animal before Boccioni’s sculptures had alluded to motion by showing the subject in the midst of action. The focus of previous sculptures before Boccioni was on the facial details and the importance of the figure. In the Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, Boccioni shifts the focus off the face of the subject, which has been abstracted past the point of recognition and focuses on the subject’s motion. The striding person does not represent one person but the motion that all people make when running. Likewise with the Dynamism of a Speeding Horse + Houses, the specifics of the house or the horse are unimportant in the sculptural representation. The focus is on the abstraction of the horse’s motion. According to Dr. Phillip Rylands, Director of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, where the sculpture is shown, the sculpture was originally hung in Marinetti’s house from the ceiling and therefore was suppose to be seen from below. At this angle the diagonal movement from the back of the horse to its pointed nose is even more clearly shown. Boccioni’s move of the attention of the sculpture from the subject’s details to its motion was groundbreaking for sculpture.

Other Futurist artists also shifted the focus of their paintings from the subject to the subject’s motion, however, Boccioni was the only Futurist artist to portray the continuity of motion. Other Futurists such as Giacomo Balla, Boccioni’s former teacher, would represent motion in a photomontage fashion in his paintings. Balla’s painting would show the form at different points during the action drawing from the scientific consecutive photos taken to study motion. Boccioni went beyond his teacher and sought to represent the continuous dynamism of the motion. Boccioni explained his approach by saying that “To render a body in motion, I definitely do not present the trajectory, that is, the passage from one state of repose to another state of repose, but force myself to ascertain the form that expresses continuity in space” (as qtd. in Met xxix). Boccioni sculptures represent the continuance nature of motion. While Balla represented the sequential instants of action in space and time in his paintings. Boccioni’s portrayal of uninterrupted motion is far more advance that other Futurists illustration of movement.
Unlike other Futurist Boccioni was also able to represent in his forms the violent nature of action. In the Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, through the combination of jagged edges and curves, Boccioni expresses the motion through force lines. Cleaver in The Concept of Time in Modern Sculpture explains how “Boccioni’s Unique Form in Space” stresses more the violence of movement through lines of force and multiple edges" (Cleaver 235). Cleaver explains how Boccioni expresses motion through the subject’s ferocious transition through continuous action. In the Dynamism of a Speeding Horse + Houses the sharp point of the horse’s head and the jagged edges of the wood and iron represent the intensity of the horse’s speed. Likewise the sharp edges of the forms representing the moving body in the Unique Forms of Continuity in Space highlight the forcefulness of the action. Boccioni unlike other Futurists was able to portray the intensity of motion in his artwork.
Boccioni’s sculptures show the violent continuous nature of fast motion’s interaction with its environment. Boccioni was the only sculptor of his time to push the art form to represent abstractly the subject’s fusion with its environment. In the book Umberto Boccioni, Ester Coen explains how “Boccioni sought a synthetic form, a single image which could express the fusion of the object and its surrounding environment” (Coen xxx). He explains how Boccioni merges the intensity of motion with its environment all in one form. In the Dynamism of a Speeding Horse + Houses fusion of the galloping horse with its environment is shown, where the viewer is not aware which elements of the sculpture represent the house and which the horse. On the Guggenheim website, this piece is explained by saying that the, “nature of vision produces the illusion of a fusing of forms.” It goes on to say that “Sculptures such as the present example are concerned with the apparent compression of space as an object traverses it, and with the nature of the object’s redefinition by that space” (http://www.guggenheimvenice.it/inglese/collections/artisti/dettagli/boccioni_dinamismo_cavallo.html). The author is explaining how in this piece the horse’s speeding form is redefining its environment. Likewise in the Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, the subject appears to fuse with its environment when in motion through the effects of perception of vision. This sculpture demonstrates how the body parts in motion appear to take on different shapes, as the eye perceives them to fuse with the air around them. The fusion of the moving body parts and the air around them is seen in the way that the figure’s legs have multiple smooth pointed forms sticking out to represent how the feet when in motion are perceived to fuse with the air. Similarly the shape of the buttock cheeks of the subject are pointed to represent the fading persistence of vision as the buttock cheek moves to a new space as the figure strides forward. Through sculpture Boccioni is able to show how an object when in motion is perceived to fuse with its environment.

Boccioni would create the fusion of the subject’s continuous motion with its surroundings by following his intuition. Boccioni writes, “Intuition is the process, which enables us to grasp, “La vita stessa”, Life itself. It grasps what is Unique, what is absolute, what is Real, rather than what is subject to approximative scientific laws, which can only be relative (as qtd. in Petrie 142). Boccioni explains his method by saying that instead of representing motion in a scientific photomontage approach, Boccioni explains his method by saying he relies on his gut feeling to abstract the motion’s energy and its interaction with the space around it. He continues by writing about the “Intuitive search for the Unique form of continuity in space” (as qtd. in Petrie 142). By using his intuition Boccioni pushed what was possible with art by abstracting the motion to make his forms represent the subject’s powerful synergy with its surroundings.

Boccioni’s sculptures and the whole Futurist movement built on the ideas developed in Impressionism and pushed the possibilities in art into Modernity. Boccioni felt that Futurism was a continuation from Impressionism because it sought to represent abstractly the sensations of the world. Impressionism broke away from Classical representation and into a more expressive way of rendering our impressions of our world. Boccioni pushed this thinking even further with his experiments with representing motion’s sensations. Futurism was such a radically new way of thinking in Italy that it encouraged later avant-garde movement such as Surrealism and Abstraction.

Boccioni’s experiments with motion paved the way for other artists to explore the interaction of an object in motion with its environment. Brancusi’s Bird in Space (1923) built on the idea explored in Unique Forms of Continuity in Space by exploring the motion of a bird in flight in similar shiny bronze. In the Bird in Space, the motion of the bird is abstracted even further than Boccioni’s form. Brancusi simplifies the bird’s upward motion down to one main vertical simple smooth shape. Calder’s mobiles, an example of one being Big Red (1959) are another example of the influence of Boccioni. Calder however does not recreate the movement of the subject in artwork like Boccioni, but uses light forms so the subject will experience motion through the air currents in the surrounding environment. Calder has gone further with Boccioni’s understanding of motion by creating a situation where the viewer can see the subject’s motion first hand. Boccioni opened up the possibilities to explore motion in sculpture so later artists such as Brancusi and Calder could push the boundaries of three-dimensional art even further.

Boccioni revolutionized sculpture forever in shifting the attention of the sculpture to a moving creature’s forceful interaction with the space around it. His experiments made in 1913 to 1915 in sculpture opened up the possibility of sculptural representation of motion and new material use in sculpture. It is important to remember that Boccioni was the first artist to show motion in sculpture and incorporate found objects in his pieces, so we will never forget the huge impact he had on later artists such as Jeff Koons, Brancusi and Calder. It’s also important for contemporary audiences to cherish the few remaining Boccioni sculptures. The respected art historian, Apollinare, when he first visited Boccioni’s 1913 exhibition of sculptures was overwhelmed and desperate for Boccioni to cast the plaster sculptures into bronze so they would last forever. Boccioni describes Apollinare’s reaction as; “He says there is no one but me in modern sculpture. He said that some of my works are genuine historical documents that must be preserved” (as qtd. in MET 204). Unfortunately Boccioni did not follow this advice soon enough. None of his sculptures were bronzed till after his young death at 34 years old. By then nine of the original eleven plaster sculptures from the 1913 exhibition were destroyed. We should cherish the remaining few because of the advances Boccioni made to forever revolutionize the “mummified art form.”


Works Cited
Boccioni, Umberto. Dynamism of a Speeding Horse + Houses. The Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice. . 21 October, 2008
.
Boccioni, Umberto. Unique Forms of Continuity in Space. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 23 October, 2008
.
Cleaver, Dale. “The Concept of Time in Modern Sculpture.” Art Journal, Vol. 22, No. 4 (1963): 232-245. .
Coen, Ester. Umberto Boccioni. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1988.
Edwards, Hugh. “Umberto Boccioni.” The Art Institute of Chicago Quarterly, No. 2 (1958): 25-28. .
Petrie, Brian. “Boccioni and Bergson.” The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 116, No. 852 (1974) 140-147. .
Rylands, Phillip. Personsal interview. 12 June 2008.
"Umberto Boccioni: Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (1990.38.3)". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. 2006. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 14 Oct . 2008
.

I like Getty, but don't rush to this show...

This weekend I also saw the exhibition of Bernini and the Birth of the Baroque Portrait Sculpture at the Getty Center. Although the Getty is probably the most visited museum in Los Angeles it is my least favorite. The Getty is an amazing architectural space, and the garden is gorgeous, but I often find that their shows don’t offer much depth. I understand that they are geared more towards a family and broader audience however I still feel they could also offer something more for someone who has an arts background. I went to this exhibition because after going to Rome this summer and seeing all Bernini’s fountains and monuments and his work on the exterior of the Saint Peters I knew I had to see the exhibition. The show consists of busts of various important individuals in the Baroque period. I understand that Bernini’s masterpieces in the Borghese Gallery and all over Rome could not be included in the show but I would like some reference to them. Bernini really was incredible to create such lifelike sculptures out of marble. I just wish the exhibition could have offered more information or insight into Bernini or tried to show a different side of his work.

More Museum Show Commentary...

I really recommend the “Between Earth and Heaven- The Architecture of John Lautner” at the UCLA’s Hammer Museum. Both the design of the exhibition and the architecture of John Lautner are innovatively and creatively designed. Lautners believed that “a building should awaken a transcended understanding of the environment through conversation with the environment.” His designs integrate architecture in a dialogue with the landscape. I didn’t know anything about his work before going to the exhibition but I left feeling like I had a strong understanding of his aesthetic and design philosophy because of the design of the exhibition. In the subtle way that Lautner created an interesting dialogue between his architecture and the landscape, the design of the exhibition creates an interesting dialogue between the creation of his buildings and the life of the buildings now. On slated architectural planning boards you can see the preliminary sketches and models of his plans along with brief explanations and projected on the walls above are footage clips of the interior and exterior of the buildings now. It is interesting to consider both sides of the life of the building- the creation and the building decades later.

Blog3-The Problem Perspective at MOCA

After seeing the Martin Kippenberg: The Problem Perspective exhibition at the MOCA Grande I am left feeling only half satisfied.

Going into the show I knew very little about the artist other than he was a German artist. I was drawn to the show because I really liked one of the photographs that was used on the advertisement of Martin standing in St Mark’s Square in Venice. He is dressed in a handsome suit with pigeons all around him and one sits on his head and one on his shoulder. I also saw the other self portrait painting that was used in the ads of Martin in a fur jacket and sheriff's hat standing in front of a sign with the DDR posters up and a sign saying, “Souvenirs.” I was drawn to these self-portraits because of their sense of story and slight social commendatory. The one in Venice really struck me because it reminded me of Venice and their pigeon problem. The pigeons are so iconic in St Marks Square. Tourists, I have no idea why, love to feed them. However their population is out of control and it has caused a large problem for the city’s ecosystem. The Venetian government made it illegal to feed the pigeons anywhere in Venice except in St. Mark’s Square as an attempt to control the problem. The picture is also ironic because Martin is dressed in this gorgeous expensive suit, and “fare la bella figurea,” as Italians do yet he gladly has all these dirty pigeons on him.

When I went to the exhibition I expected to see more self-portraits and works of this nature, but did not. I loved the sketches that he did on hotel stationary throughout his travels scattered throughout the exhibition. It was interesting to think of all the places he went and to imagine him sitting in all this different hotel room, sketching or watercolor painting.

I was disappointed mostly because the picture from Venice that I loved so much from all the ads was very small and part of this huge collage so it was difficult to really see it very well. I felt slightly tricked by the ads because I expected it to be larger and also for they’re to be more photography in the show

I thought it was interesting to consider that Martin created a lot of the work around the time that Berlin Wall was up and unlike a lot of other German artists working at this time his work didn’t become dark and gloomy. Instead he chose to work in bright colors while still dealing with the idea of restricted freedom like in his piece Put Your Freedom in the Corner, Save it for a Rainy Day (1990) and With the Best Will in the World, I Can’t See a Swastika (1984.)

I am glad I went to the show, however every time I go to the MOCA and they aren’t showing any of their permanent collection I feel slightly jeped. The MOCA has such a rich collection of art and although I know they don’t have the gallery space to show their collection and exhibitions, I still always leave feeling like I am missing something.

Blog1-Sea=Dancer

The Sea=Dancer by Gino Severini (1883-1966) is my favorite painting in the museum that I worked at this summer. Severini was part of the Futurist movement that started in Milan in 1910 with Fillipo Tommaso Marinetti’s manifesto, Manifesto of the Futurist Painters. The Futurists believed in motion and progression and a rebellion against art of the past. The museum that I worked at has arguably the most comprehensive collection of Futurist artists, including Balla, Boccioni (the most famous of the Futurists) and Carlo Carra among others.
Severini is my favorite. He holds this title because unlike the other Futurists who focused on the movement of automobiles, airplanes or animals, Severini focused his paintings on the graceful movement of the dancer. The dancer is a theme that came up many times in his work. There are two Severini paintings of dancers at the museum.
In the Mattioli Collection there is his Blue Dancer (1912), which is of a female dancer abstracted but not to the point that it is not easily recognizable. I love how Severini added sequins (similar to ones that would probably be on the dancer’s dress) onto the actual painting. I also love the edge of the man in a tuxedo that you can see at the top left and the lady in a large white hat and waiter in red conversing to the right of the painting. I can just imagine this lively nightclub scene.
My favorite Severini is Sea=Dancer (1914). I love this piece not only because of its warm bright colors and use of Divisionism (a technique of painting where brushstrokes and dots are divided and there is no mixing and blending of the colors as seen in traditional painting) but mainly for its composition. I love how the painting continues with a couple brushstrokes onto its wooden frame, which Severini also created, as though the movement of the dance can’t be contained. But mostly I love this painting because the dancer is almost unrecognizable. Some days when I would be guarding the room its in, I wouldn’t be able to see the dancer and some days it was so clear to me. What I thought was the dancer would change day to day. The green cylinder-like shape in the top middle left I always can see as her abdomen but what I perceive as her arms, legs, and skirt would change constantly. For me this is the most powerful type of art. One that no matter how long you stare at it, it can always provide something new to you or some other alternate meaning.